It was still pitch dark when the big yellow car left New York, with Jean—aroused, but now in happy sleep—in the rumble seat. Bob had stayed with his mother.
Cy drove, with Crystal in the middle, and H.M. outside. They had stopped only to buy a bundle of early morning papers, which they threw into the rumble seat The tall lamps gleamed along the West Side Highway; the river had only a scent and breath of morning.
Perhaps not ten words were spoken. But happiness, because of Manning and his wife in this world again, filled that car. And there was more.
Round the spectacles of Sir Henry Merrivale, indicating that he did not feel altogether tired or sleepy, hovered a certain evil anticipation. This same look, though in no sense evil, gave a faraway expression, as of a peak in Darien, to the face of Cy Norton. Crystal slept, her head on Cy's shoulder.
The car hummed on.
When they turned off Denford Avenue into Elm Road, at Maralarch, the sky was a faint ghostly grey. Outlines of trees were becoming trees. It was chilly, with a dampness of summer dew. In that stillness, the car seemed to roar as Cy swung it past the facade of the long white house, and into the driveway at the side.
Two sets of windows were lighted, one set on the left of the front door, and one on the right H.M. glanced towards the library.
"He's there, son."
"He is," agreed Cy. "Maybe with handcuffs."
In the long library, with its windows both front and back, District Attorney Gilbert Byles was waiting.
Byles showed no sign of fatigue or disorder. His arched skull, from which the black hair was receding, his watchful dark eyes and slight twisted smile, his face broadening at the jaw and then tapering almost to a point, all gave him the air of a patient Mephistopheles.
"Jean's still dead on her feet," Crystal called from the doorway. "Shall I put her to bed and then make some coffee?"
"An admirable idea, Miss Manning," Byles told her, and bowed suavely. "Do that, by all means."
Byles was standing against a wall of old books. Just behind the District Attorney's elbow, Cy noticed a gap in Lea's two-volume History of the Spanish Inquisition.
The second was in Byles's hands, and he was idly turning the pages.
"I’ve been looking," he explained, "for a few tips here. But I'm afraid they wouldn't be legal." And he sighed.
This behavior, especially considering the thin blue-gorged veins in Byles's temples, deceived nobody. He was a man who at any moment would let out a yell and jump all over the room.
"As for you, Sir Henry..."
"LO, Gil," said H.M., with surprising meekness.
"Sit down!" said Byles.
While Cy Norton deposited newspapers in another chair, H.M. seated himself, stuck his feet up on the table, produced and lit a stogy, at which he sniffed ghoulishly.
"We will begin," said Byles, fingering the Spanish Inquisition, with your behavior in the subway on Monday afternoon."
"Hadn't we better begin," struck in a new voice, "with something else?"
Cy jumped slightly.
He had not seen over there, by another book wall, the stocky well-dressed figure in the tapestry chair. It was Howard Betterton, his face serene and his pince-nez twinkling, also showing no fatigue or mussed clothes.
"Mr. Betterton," said Byles, with the blue veins standing out in his head, "well begin as I say. And don't tell me I'm in Westchester County. What I have to say concerns the city of New York."
"As you like," shrugged the other lawyer.
"You wrecked that damn subway!" said Byles, whipping round and pointing the Spanish Inquisition at HM. "That's a very serious offence. People were hurt..." "Who was hurt, son?"
"Money was stolen from a change booth. That’s still more serious."
"How much money, Gil?"
"The actual sum, thirty-seven cents, makes no difference to the law. Your offence is so serious ..."
"Looky here, Gil," H.M. interposed with a distressed air. "Why must you people keep bluff in' more than your hand is worth? I always think, 'God love you, do you want to make such a fuss about twenty dollars?' and I pay up. But this is different" "Ho! Is it?"
"You could stick me up in front of the beak, yes," said H.M., contemplating his cigar. "But in your law or mine, Gil, it’s still a misdemeanour and not a felony."
"Then you admit it!" Byles said quickly. "What really hurts me," he went on with an air of deep injury, "is the sheer ingratitude of your behaviour! Do you know who hushed the whole thing up? Do you know who returned your Gladstone bag? I’ll tell you: it was the police department"
H.M. looked meekly at his cigar.
Byles, now in full flood of eloquence, addressed Cy.
"You'd be surprised," he began, in the tone of a popular magazine article, "how many small things find their way to the desk of the Police Commissioner himself. This old reprobate's bag was opened. Aside from a number of articles modestly stamped ME, his name was all over the place."
"So you identified him?" asked Cy, with a wooden face.
"He's well-known. He's got a title. He's a friend of mine. That same afternoon, in the papers, he had achieved considerable notoriety by using the term 'bastard' in reference to the British Minister of Muddle."
"But that's what he is," H.M. complained querulously.
"So the Commissioner," said Byles, "thought we'd better forget the whole thing, and return the bag anonymously."
"How was it returned?" Cy asked quickly.
"It was just pushed inside the kitchen door here," retorted Byles, "when there was nobody in the kitchen. I didn't even know where H.M. was staying."
In his heart Cy thought the boys downtown had done a pretty decent job. H.M. appeared to think so too.
"I'm grateful about that, Gil. I sort of guessed
that's what it was "
"You guessed it?"
"Oh, son! This morning by the swimming pool, when that copper O'Casey had a fit and wanted me jugged, you soothed him down like a mother. Anybody but an imbecile would have seen you knew all about it; your voice showed it."
Cy’s memory moved back, and found this true. But H.M. was not interested in the matter.
"I wonder, Gil, if I could ask you a question about that bag?"
"Ask it!" Byles said menacingly.
"When you returned the bag, did you send a .38 revolver along with it?"
Byles closed his eyes. With powerful restraint he controlled himself.
"Well, no," he answered offhandedly. "We don't do that, as a general rule. Of course, if the suitcase belonged to some very important person, we might send a night stick or a tear-gas bomb." Then he exploded. "God damn it, did you expect a revolver?"
"Easy, Gil. E-e-asy! Keep your shirt on!"
"I've got my shirt on," returned the District Attorney, swiftly unbuttoning his waistcoat and dragging out about a third of the shirt as proof. "I've got my temper, too! But I'm not going to have it long!"
Then he pointed the Spanish Inquisition straight at H.M.
"You're crazy!" he said.
Still H.M. wore the look of a penitent dog.
"Sure, Gil," he agreed. "Can I ask one more question?"
"No! Wait a minute! What is it?"
"Your accountants," mused H.M., "finished their work on the books at the Manning Foundation about half-past eleven last night, didn't they?"
Byles, who was stuffing his shirt back into his trousers, looked up sharply. "How did you know that?"
'Well, I’ll tell you." H.M. savoured the cigar. "If you dare a Yank to do something in twenty-four hours, he won't stop at that He gets so mad he insists on doin' it in twelve hours, just to show you. I dunno why, but he does."
Byles started to speak, but closed his mouth again.
"When you didn't reach me by eleven-thirty last night—and you had the telephone number, 'cause I phoned your office—I guessed you'd finished that auditing. Eleven-thirty was the twelve-hour line from the time of our bet And I also guessed the news. Did you finish, Gil?"
"Yes!"
"Is Manning a crook? Did he pinch a hundred thousand? What's wrong with his books?"
With a short throat clearing. Howard Betterton arose from the tapestry chair and strolled towards the table as Manning's lawyer.
"That, I'm afraid," said Betterton, "is what's upsetting the District Attorney. There is nothing wrong with Mr. Manning's books."
"Not a penny missing?"
"Not a red cent."
"Cor, how you amaze me," breathed H.M., and put the stogy back in his mouth.
"In fact," Betterton continued, putting his fingertips on the table, "the Manning Foundation has never been in such excellent financial shape. Oh, one other thing! Sir Henry and Mr. Norton! I think you both heard about two young men, one from Michigan and the other from West Virginia?"
Cy nodded.
"They were given paid fellowships," he said. "One in verse and the other in music. Manning was supposed to have got 'em into taking the fellowships for nothing, and pocketed the money himself! That’s what stung the District Attorney into taking action!"
"Exactly. I have here"—Betterton produced, with something of a flourish, a flimsly typewritten sheet—"a copy of a letter sent by Mr. Manning to Mr. Digby Purcell three days before the former's disappearance. Mr. Purcell is the Michigan man. A letter to the other, just like it, is still in the files."
Betterton handed it to H.M., and Cy read over his shoulder.
Dear Mr. Purcell:
I am appalled to discover, following my letter of June 10th, that a clerical error had led me into an unfortunate mistake. I shall be happy to explain this when we meet But I can assure you that our funds are, and have been, at all times satisfactory. By way of apology I enclose our cheque for $2,500 (two thousand five hundred dollars) in a lump sum, rather than pursue our usual system of...
"Thank you," said Betterton, receiving the letter back and putting it into his pocket.
And now Byles was really dangerous. He had regained his poise and his Mephistophelian calm.
His black hair and eyebrows stood out against his sallow face. Riffling the pages of the book. Byles let his dark eyes rove around the group.
"You knew all about this!" he said to Betterton.
"I knew the Manning Foundation was in good shape, yes."
"And that's why you didn't try to throw chairs in my way!"
"I begged you not to do it, sir. However, if you insisted..."
The twisted smile curved round Byles's lips.
"Not a bad conspiracy," he said, and looked at H.M. "What's more, you're in it too!"
"Easy, son! Stop the bus! All I did was challenge you to investigate Manning, because I knew smackin' well he wasn't a crook."
"You wilfully and deliberately," said Byles, "gave me false information. You told me Manning's girl friend was a fan dancer..."
"I didn't say that, Gil. Manning said it. To Crystal who spread the report."
"You deliberately gave us a wrong address and telephone number. The police were led astray for practically a whole day..."
"By this girl friend, hey?"
"She was your girl friend, you old ghoul!"
"Oh, son! That's a shockin' thing to say."
"Another little charge against you. Not only did you obstruct the police in carrying out their duty, but you aided and abetted a criminal in escaping from the law!"
"By the way, son. What crime has Manning committed?"
"That," reported Byles, and his eyes glittered, "is what we're going to figure out"
He retreated a few steps, still riffling the pages of the book.
"I claim," he said, as though to a jury, "that this whole hullabaloo to arrest Manning was started by Manning himself. Who wrote those fellowship letters with a catch in 'em? Manning! Who, I'll swear, sent 'em anonymous letters that sic'd 'em on to me? Manning! Who started the rumours that the Foundation was rocky? Manning! Who practically challenged arrest? Manning! Who disappeared, making us think the charge was true? Manning!"
At each repetition of the word, "Manning," H.M. would nod in confirmation.
"Bull's-eye," he nodded. "Not an outer in the lot"
"But why!" demanded Byles. "Why the hell did Manning do it? He's not off his head. He can't want himself to be branded as a thief, even if the charge is wrong? There's a conspiracy, and you and Betterton are in it Otherwise, I ask you, why!"
"I can explain that, Gil." "Oh?" said Byles, making even his nose look suspicious.
"But I've got a 'why’ for you. Why are you so steamed up, wantin' to shove somebody in the clink no matter who it is? Why?"
Abruptly the District Attorney lowered his defences.
"All right," he snapped. "I'll tell you straight"
And Byles began to pace up and down the room.
"I'm in a jam," he said. "Maybe I oughtn't to have butted in, because I don't like Manning. Maybe I should have let Westchester handle it But I did butt in. I spread it all over the place. I charged into Manning's office, with twice as many accountants as I needed. I found nothing. Tomorrow, when I have to report, I've made a fool of myself.
"What's more, the Police Commissioner will be raving. The New York police aren't concerned in this, but every damn-fool newspaper reader now thinks they are. They're supposed to have the swimming-pool mystery, and look at 'em failing! Denials are not good! When there's trouble between the D.A. and the Police Commissioner, look out for City Hall!" Byles stopped his pacing. "And I'm the goat!" he added.
H.M. studied him curiously past the smoke of the stogy.
"So!" he murmured. "Then what you want, hey, is somebody to throw to the wolves?" "I didn't say that!"
"Well, son, you can throw me. I'm not goin' to make any defense, though I could. But just tell me, honest-Injun: are you actually going to shove me or anybody else into the coop?"
Byles hesitated. He stalked to the table. Drawing a powerful breath, he extended his arm and pointed the forefinger within an inch of H.M.'s nose.
"I could..." he began, and stopped.
Byles's arm fell to his side. He again paced up and down, the whitening daylight touching his long-nosed, pointed-chinned, uneasy face. He looked round at the bookcase. He stared at the windows. He examined the fireplace.
"Oh, the hell with it," said Byles, and flung the Spanish Inquisition into the fireplace. "No, curse your hide, I won't do that. I was just sore. Forget it."
And he went back to the table, sat down, and put his head in his hands.
"Somehow, Gil," H.M. spoke drowsily, "that's what I knew you were goin' to say. The trouble is, hey, that they'll jump over you for what's not your fault?"
"Yes!"
"And the Police Commissioner is wild?" "I told you that."
"YTcnow," said H.M., shaking his head, "I honestly think you ought to take a look at this morning's papers. No, don't start cursin' and swearin'! Cy, put 'em on the table in front of him."
Cy did so.
"Just pick 'em up," continued H.M. soothingly. "Read 'em slowly and carefully. Don't speak a word, and for the love of Esau don't blow your top, till you've finished every line."
The deathly hush of not-quite-dawn, with shapes still emerging faintly, pressed round the house. Cy wondered what had happened to Crystal, who was supposed to be preparing coffee.
Then strange noises began to issue from the throat of the District Attorney. Cy wished a candid camera could have recorded each expression. The last occurred when Byles stood up helplessly, his eyes bulging.
"Now keep quiet, son!" H.M. rebuked .him gently.
Getting his feet down from the table, H.M. dropped his stogy into an ash tray.
"I can't give it to you in American journalese, but it'll run something like this."
Then H.M. began to speak in a strange, high-falutin tone.
"The innocence of Frederick Manning," he intoned, "has been proved by District Attorney Byles, who never believed the few insinuations against Manning's honesty. 'Ill show you,' declared the DA. In the fastest piece of work ever done by the D.A.'s office..."
Byles uttered a noise like a ghost really getting down to business. Cy Norton prodded H.M. in the side.
"Swimming-pool mystery," Cy prompted. "Oh, ah! That ought to come first?" "Absolutely!"
"Swim Riddle Cracked!" intoned Sir Henry Merrivale.
"Officer Aloysius J. O'Casey, a plain New York cop and an Irishman to boot, solved the mystery of the Manning swimming pool. In doing this, he triumphed over the British detective, an old souse named Merrivale, who was baffled and has conceded defeat."
"Oh, my God," said Byles.
"Much credit for O'Casey's triumph must go
to District Attorney Byles' continued H.M. "The D.A. took his quick-witted Irish-American with him when he went to see the pool. O'Casey's quick eye noted a water-polo ball..."
H.M. broke off in reading an imaginary newspaper.
"In the first of the story, you've noticed," he said, "if s explained how Manning stuck his head inside a water-polo ball. He just trod water, and sneaked away while everybody was lookin' at me. In gettin' away, Manning was injured because he couldn't see; and he's confined to bed by the accident."
Byles, with a wild stare, shook a copy of the Record in the air.
"But none of this is true, is it?" he demanded.
"Oh, Gil!" protested H.M., as one might address a child. "Of course it ain't true. But tell me: what’s the name of the Police Commissioner?"
"Finnegan."
"And what's the name of the Mayor?" "O'Donnell."
"Well," said H.M., "I can't exactly see 'em gnashing their teeth over the story. Can you?"
Byles swallowed. "But this water-polo ball thing..."
"What about it?"
"It's nuts," the District Attorney said briefly.
"It's not nuts, Gil," H.M. assured him. "I had my doubts when I heard it, but I've been sittin' and thinkin'. If you can get your head inside that ball, and I think I see a way to do it, you can work it. I think," mused H.M., with an evil gleam in his eye,
"I’ll flummox 'em with it when I get home. Another British disappearin' mystery..."
Byles regarded him coldly.
"As a matter of fact..." Byles hesitated. "It's happened before," he said. "And it's American. Did you ever read an old book called The New York Tombs, published in 1874?"
"No, son. Should I have?"
"It's here," declared Byles, hurrying to one shelf and returning with a big volume bound in faded green. "In the old days there used to be a river or something of the sort behind the Tombs prison. One prisoner escaped with his head inside a wooden duck."
Cy Norton smote his fist on the table.
"Mr. Byles," he said excitedly, "where's your newspaper sense?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"This is our follow-up!" said Cy. "This is it! Years ago, from the old Tombs, a prisoner escapes with his head in a rubber duck..."
"A wooden duck!"
"We'd better make it rubber. That sounds better. Officer O'Casey, a keen student of crim-onology, remembers this case which has happened before. Everybody will believe it then!"
"Mr. Norton. Were you responsible for this somewhat memorable pack of lies?"
"It was only," Cy hesitated, "that I thought I knew the line H.M. was working on: that Manning was innocent, and had been proved innocent. As for O'Casey..."
"They say here," interrupted Byles, dropping everything to snatch up the Echo, "that O'Casey accosted the British aristocrat as he was drinking a magnum of champagne at the Stork Club."
"As a matter of fact." returned Cy, keeping a very straight face as all New Englanders should, "it was at a hot-dog counter at Grand Central."
"I see. You surpass Ananias, Mr. Norton. Well?"
"O'Casey," Cy explained, "gave his explanation in front of a lot of witnesses. Later H.M. shook hands with him and told him most of the credit for solving the case ought to go to him. O'Casey asked if he had solved it. H.M.'s 'No,' wasn't audible. Do you see?"
"Perhaps. Go on!"
"O'Casey really thought he'd rung the bell. I took a chance and guessed he'd be certain to rush off to his precinct station with witnesses. Possibly even to Headquarters. When I phoned again, before we left the studio, I found he'd done it."
Howard Betterton, smiling slightly, clapped the maddened District Attorney softly on the shoulder.
"It seems to me," said Betterton, still patting Byles's shoulder, "you'd better ring up and confirm these stories as soon as possible. Er— especially the part about Mr. Manning having had an accident Eh?"
"But I can't do that!" retorted Byles.
"Why not, son?" inquired H.M.
"Because there's not a damn word of truth in any of it! Besides, it's unethical and if s against the law!"
Oh, Gil’ said H.M., a little surprised. "How in the name of Esau are you goin' to get justice unless you do flummox the law?"
"Do you do this kind of thing in England? And never land in the can?"
"I’ve been in the police court The beak carried on awful. But I've never had penal servitude. Just you keep soothed and placid, Gil."
There was a long silence, while Byles's long arms and hands supported his weight on the table. His stare at H.M. was of too many emotions to be described.
"IVe told you twice," he said quietly, "you were an old B.o.b. But I never realized"—he might have been a scientist looking through a microscope— "what a remarkable s.o.b." Byles stopped. "Thanks," he muttered, glaring down at the table between H.M. and Cy. Then he sat down. "I'm in with the liars."
"Excellent!" beamed Howard Betterton.
Abruptly Byles's tone changed.
"But I still don't understand," he snapped, "why Manning played that trick! Why should he practically confess he'd stolen money when he hadn't stolen money? Why should he blacken himself when he didn't need to?"
"That’s what I'm goin' to tell you," replied H.M.
Taking out another stogy, H.M looked across at Howard Betterton.
"Crystal Manning," he said in a new, alert, commanding voice, "is a long time at that coffee. Would you mind goin' out and giving her a hand?"
Betterton frowned. "But surely, at a time like this..."
Cy had seen it happen before. As though by a snap of the fingers, H.M.'s drowsy lump of bone and flesh seemed to wake up, distend, and hit round him with the force of a battering-ram.
"Hop it, son," he said.
"As you wish," agreed Betterton, and went out very much on his dignity.
H.M.'s bulk, now seeming to overspread the chair, was bent forward against the table, facing Byles.
"Manning did that," he said, "because it was the only way to accomplish what he wanted to do. He wanted to expose and show up a person who's a very nasty bit of work: which same person tried to kill him."
Byles's eyes grew uneasy and suspicious.
"But they can't hang an attempted murder rap on anybody," he protested. "Have you talked to Lieutenant Trowbridge? If the victim won't testify, that's that!"
"I know. It's got to be all hushed up, I agree." H.M. lowered his voice. "But couldn't you and I and Trowbridge, strictly unofficially, make this person just as sick as mud?"
"Now wait a minute!" Byles said in alarm.
And, at the same moment, someone tapped Cy on the shoulder. It was Emily, the Mannings' maid, her face drawn with lack of sleep.
"Miss Crystal would like to see you," she whispered.
"Sorry, but I'm afraid I'm busy."
"Miss Crystal says it's very urgent." Emily gripped his shoulder.
If it had been anybody on earth but Crystal...
Cy, his very bones aching with curiosity, followed Emily out of the room. H.M. was attempting to bend forward across the table towards Byles, and muttering.
"But who is this attempted murderer?" Byles demanded. His voice rose up. "And how in Satan's name did Manning get out of that pool?"
"Listen," said H.M.